Gaming Target - PlayStation 2: Ratchet & Clank: Going Commando

Written by Chris Reiter on May 06, 2003

First Impressions: Fixing the broken galaxy one evil dude at a time.

Platform games used to be as uncommon to the PlayStation 2 in a way that it's a rarity to find a barrel full of RPGs on this generation's other two competitive consoles. But as time went on, platform fanatics had a few surprises waiting, namely in the formations of Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy and Maximo: Ghosts to Glory. Still, two big hits weren't enough for Sony. They needed something different, or someone different. They needed characters with fresh faces and a whole new kind of world to explore. They needed...Ratchet and Clank! With last year's release hitting it big, giving gamers a mechanic and his robot buddy who together had a destiny to save the planet from evil's wrath, Sony and the team who brought the game to life -- Insomniac Games -- have decided to revisit Ratchet and Clank's story in this fall's upcoming sequel, Ratchet and Clank 2: Going Commando.

Heroes have a beginning...but what about an end? For Ratchet and Clank, their end has a continuation. After mopping the floor with Chairman Drek, Ratchet and Clank's world from there on returned to normal: being in the slump. The two heroes, now bored to death with the every day, are hoping for a second chance at the big shot. Lucky them, they're about to be dragged off into the Bogon Galaxy where they're handed a proposition by Abercrombie Fizzwidget, the CEO of the galaxy's largest corporation, Megacorp, to track down the whereabouts of the company's recently stolen Proto Pet prototype and the shadowy figure named Angela Cross who was spotted hauling it away. With a new world of vastness to explore and new danger to encounter, how could this adventuresome hungry pair refuse?

So a good question developers usually ask themselves is (probably), "How can we improve on a gameplay engine that only just came out of the oven a year ago?" Insomniac's answer to that is to take out the bad and add in the good. Ratchet and Clank might've not been the strongest looking platform goers, but that's one thing that's all going to change now. In a unique development pattern, Ratchet will actually be able to upgrade both his weapons and himself, as the enemies will do the same throughout Going Commando. Tough as they can be, the enemies this time won't be so, well...stupid. You can expect a much more intelligent group of offense as the enemy will really group together to take you out by working with one another. Ratchet has ways of rising to the top of the occasion, though. Much like in an RPG's battle system, the more that Ratchet fends off against enemies, the more he'll gain a batch of experience for himself that is divided up amongst his own strength and his weapon's. Once he's got enough of an advantage in this point system, his life bar will increase and his guns will transform from say a lava gun that fires lava over to a meteor gun, which ends up leaving the enemy behind in a rain of flaming boulders.

Exploration will redirect itself into new heights with most of the game's worlds (20 in total from which you can travel to), as there'll be plenty of more spherically shaped lands. As before, players will have the opportunity to survey a variety of the worlds' sections for puzzles to solve and bolts to collect, which are used to purchase everything, including Ratchet's weapon stockpile. There'll be 19 new weapons in all -- and each weapon from the first game can be uploaded into the game if you've managed to keep an old save file handy. Another addition will come as the title it's given, maxigames. You already know what a minigame is, so a maxigame is basically the same thing...except to the max. Across this particular galaxy, you'll come across assortments of game types like shooting, hover bike racing, and even gladiator styled brawl contests of which each will earn you points towards leveling up. Plus Clank will be around too to test his metal behind to the limits, as well as Ratchet's jumping moves -- making this a sound successor so far.

With the first Ratchet and Clank being the forefront for an overload of interactivity in futurism, with crowds of hovering ships zipping on by through crowds of immense city landscaped outdoor areas, it'll be hard to tweak Ratchet and Clank 2: Going Commando with a new outfit on. However, that's not stopping the team at Insomniac Games from trying. And indeed, their efforts are proving to make useful, as the game will direct improvements in areas like expanding on an array of much busier places to navigate. Better lighting and shading sources will come into play also. To top it all off, the character models will look different, in a good way too, as Ratchet will have access to armor wears now that will make him stronger against enemy attacks and even surpassing his older, weaker appearance in the process.